Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Daily Star hides another truth

Pieces of misinformation are like potholes, until they cover an entire road. That is when that road becomes unusable. The Daily Star strives (again) to ingrain another piece of misinformation about Shibir in the mind of readers in its ultimate goal to taint the organization. In its report published today entitled "Jamaat-Shibir men hold brisk procession in city" it has chosen to hide another small bombshell, another bit of the truth. All seems well in the report which gives a routine roundup of a procession brought out by Shibir where " The law enforcers had to fire around six blank shots to disperse the Jamaat-Shibir men". All is well and fine and everyone goes home happy while 'evil' Shibir were sent scurrying away, right? Wrong.

This report was found wanting in depth due to lack of information, which I found with such ease that I felt stupid. Banglanews24.com came up with a concise version of events in Bangla entitled, "পান্থপথে লাঠিসোটা নিয়ে শিবিরের মিছিল/Shibir procession at Pathapath with sticks". That little bit of detail left out was " বুধবার বেলা সাড়ে ৩টার দিকে বের হওয়া মিছিলটি পান্থপথ থেকে কারওয়ান বাজারের
দিকে যাওয়ার পথে পুলিশ ও ছাত্রলীগের কর্মীরা এতে ধাওয়া দেয়। / On Wednesday, at half past 3 pm, the procession, on going from Panthapath to Kawran Bazaar, was chased by police and Chatra League members "

Chatra League is the student unit of the Awami League, which is the ruling party in Bangladesh. Put it down to poor reporting skills or intentional omission, The Daily Star has successfully fed you another bit of misinformation

Here's the picture published in the report of banglanews24.com of Chatra League cadres supposedly chasing down Shibir.